The Toronto Maple Leafs made a significant error by overpaying Oliver Ekman-Larsson in free agency.

The Leafs handed the aging former Phoenix Coyotes star a contract that is too lengthy and carries an excessively high cap hit.

This trade poorly utilized the Leafs’ limited cap space and was misguided in nearly every aspect.

It’s an almost indefensible signing, which, unfortunately, has become routine for the Leafs.

The Indefensible Signing of Oliver Ekman-Larrson: Just Another Routine Leafs Error

Like nearly every Leafs contract signed recently, you have to wonder who they were competing against. Was there another team eager to give four years to a 33-year-old bottom-pairing defender? And if so, why didn’t the Leafs let that team take him? (cap info puckpedia.com).

Florida won a Cup with OEL playing on their third pairing and making $2.5 million, a great value signing for one year.

Giving him an extra million and three more years is simply foolish. He’s worse now than last year because he’s 33, and NHL players generally decline significantly in their 30s.

Ekman-Larsson’s days as a viable top-four option are over. He is a subpar top-four player and an adequate bottom-pairing one. (Adequate because, though he has decent stats, he has no upside).

The issue is that in a salary cap NHL, if you pay your star players, which the Leafs are, you must economize on depth players.

This strategy makes sense because, in the NHL, the difference in actual output and contributions among non-star players is minimal. The worst and best non-star players are not different enough to justify paying the best non-star a lot of money.

This is why the Leafs allocated half their salary cap to five players. Continuing this approach, signing expensive bottom-pairing defensemen is illogical.

Moreover, consider this:

Last year, OEL played on Florida’s third pairing and posted an Expected Goals Rating of 54% and an Actual Goals Rating of 55%, winning his minutes 49-40.

Mark Giordano, meanwhile, played on Toronto’s third pairing for the league minimum, had a 54% Expected Goals Rating and a 56% Actual Goals Rating, winning his minutes 32-25. (all stats from naturalstattrick.com).

Assuming OEL doesn’t decline further, the Leafs are paying almost $3 million more for what they were getting for the league minimum and without a four-year commitment.

Worse, with Liljegren’s raise, the Leafs might end up paying their bottom pairing $6.5 million for the same results they were getting for $2.5 million.

That is just horrendous management, and remember, if OEL plays in the top four, it means Jake McCabe isn’t, and the Leafs paid all those draft picks for a third-pairing guy instead.

The Leafs could have saved the $3.5 million to avoid LTIR and accumulate cap space throughout the season, then made a move at the Trade Deadline when more options, including stars, are available.

This strategy would have allowed them to audition players like Kokkanen and Niemela while buying time for smarter moves. Unfortunately, Treliving likes to chase names and seems extremely hesitant about trades since he helped turn the Florida Panthers into a powerhouse.

Any way you look at it, the Oliver Ekman-Larsson signing is indefensible. It is a bad signing by a bad GM with no clue what he’s doing.